The ministry examined the current legal regulation, evaluated various methods for registering partnerships of same-sex persons recognized by courts, analyzed the financial costs of creating the functionalities of the relevant registers, technical possibilities, and concluded that currently partnership registration is not possible because a law is necessary to regulate these relationships. Partnership registration also causes further consequences, such as inheritance, property relations, and other aspects.
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I have never hidden my views. I prioritize the traditional family, which arises from the marriage of a man and a woman expressis verbis, provided for in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, for the child’s right to know mother and father, for the family, which ensures the continuation of life. Such a social structure has existed for millennia and generations have grown and states have been created on its basis.
Public opinion polls show that the majority of Lithuanian residents agree with this view. Therefore, my political stance coincides with the will of the majority of society.
Nevertheless, I have always tried to remain correct towards my opponents, who imagine the family structure differently and seek to implement their beliefs by political means. However, I have not agreed and will not agree that sensitive social issues can be resolved by bypassing the law and the democratic process. Representatives of a single-issue party, holding no official positions, seek to impose their ideology on state institutions and the entire society, demanding that the Minister of Justice disregard the constitutional requirement to regulate fundamental human rights issues by laws, and personally regulate the mentioned partnership relations by order.
The Civil Code (Article 3.229) firmly states that partnership must be registered in the manner prescribed by law: „The norms of this chapter establish property relations between a man and a woman who, having registered their partnership in the manner prescribed by law, live together for at least one year without registering a marriage (cohabitants), with the aim – to create family relations (…)“.
By the way, I remind you that there are several draft laws in the Seimas. Another additional draft law would solve nothing, because what is needed is not the fact of submitting or registering a draft law, but the approval of the Seimas – i.e., political will. The Constitutional Court has not suggested any other way.
Neither the Ministry of Justice nor I, as the Minister of Justice, can act ultra vires – exceeding the powers granted to me, violating the principle of separation of powers. The ministry cannot independently create a partnership registration system if the Seimas has not adopted a law.
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Of course, representatives of the former ruling majority speak the loudest about how everything can be done simply.
Those who no longer need to make decisions today and who give moral lessons should remember a few facts. The past, very liberal, ruling majority had 4 years. Both in the legislative and executive branches. And what was the result?
If we evaluate the legal regulation they achieved in the field of partnership, the result would be exactly zero. Not one, not half, not “almost succeeded.” Just zero. The partnership law was not adopted, the partnership registration procedure was not established by any legal act (neither by law nor by the ministerial order they now demand), and not a single partnership was registered. The explanation is very simple – the single-issue party would simply have to disappear if that one issue were solved by their own efforts.
Therefore, we are currently in a legal deadlock. We have a Constitutional Court ruling, we have decisions of courts of general jurisdiction, but we do not have a law that would regulate the essential elements of the content of partnership and especially the partnership registration procedure. This also causes inconsistency in court decisions: some courts oblige civil registry offices, others the Register Center, others the Ministry of Justice, and sometimes even abstractly – the Republic of Lithuania to register partnerships.
This legal mosaic is by no means as unequivocal as it is attempted to be portrayed. It is no coincidence that the Vilnius District Court turned to the Constitutional Court requesting clarification on the issue of partnership registration. If everything were so obvious, additional clarifications would probably not be needed.
There are two ways out of the legal deadlock: either a law regulating partnership and the partnership registration procedure is adopted, or Article 38 of the Constitution regarding the concept of family is amended. This question could be answered by an advisory referendum, and then the Seimas could respond to the will of society.
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